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Jafnhár-class logistics support ship
The Jafnhár-class logistics support ship is a non-combat military starship in service to the Free Planets Star Fleet. A steady and reliable workhorse vessel, it is found in nearly every Star Fleet formation and is crucial to the operations of the Defense Force as a whole. It is also one of the most common classes of ship, and by far the most common non-combat ship in service, with only light cruisers and destroyers outnumbering it in a standard formation. Originally conceived as a simple transport, its simple and adaptable design, coupled with its low construction costs and ease of manufacturing suited it well to a multitude of roles. In addition to hauling fleet supplies such as fuel, mining and refining equipment, and other consumables, it has also been adapted as a troop transport, supplementary missile platform, and even modular warship when equipped with additional systems to bolster its fighting capabilities. As a result of this adaptability and easily-upgradable design, the class is expected to remain in service for the foreseeable future. History As the demands of the Star Fleet grew, with its ever-increasing fleet of warships and many expeditions against Imperial outposts, so too did the need for supply ships to support the Defense Force's various outposts, fleet bases, and expeditionary units. Transports were nothing new to the Star Fleet, and the Jafnhár-class is merely the most recent in a long line of supply ships. Initial supply ships were small, only a few hundred meters in length, and approximately the size of the warships they supported. In the early years of the war, the Star Fleet was small, numbering only a few thousand warships, and fought defensively, allowing for a shorter supply train. However, a the war dragged on and the fleet grew larger, the supply burden increased. In addition to building more transports, the Defense Force also designed larger ships, with improvements in manufacturing techniques keeping costs generally in line with the older generation of smaller ships. This trend continued during the FPA-Imperial War until by the time the Jafnhár-class was introduced, they were many times larger than even a flag battleship, and indeed could almost carry such a ship in her cavernous hold. By this time, normal fleets were composed of tens of thousands of warships, and expeditionary warfare had become a major strategic factor. By this time, it was also common to repurpose transports into other roles, hospital ships in particular being common, and it was initially considered to use the Jafnhár-class hull as the platform for the delivery of planetary-yield warheads, although this idea was abandoned. The class soldiered on after the fall of the old Free Planets Alliance supporting the forces of the Yang Irregulars and later Iserlohn Republic. Following the Republic's agreement with the Empire, a number of the ships were retained by the democratic experiment in the Barlat Starzone, as they were not warships and posed little threat on their own to the Empire's fleets. The ships were used to revive the region's trade, and a number of them were also used by the Second Exodus to carry the cryogenic sleep pods to found what became the New Free Planets Alliance. After nearly a decade idling in orbit while the New Free Planets Alliance established itself on the surface of Arzor, they were once again called back into service, upgraded, and put into a new round of mass production to supply the new Star Fleet, a capacity in which they continue to serve. Design As an unglamorous, utilitarian ship whose functions are absolutely vital to the continued service of the Star Fleet, the Jafnhár-class has been described as being simultaneously the ugliest ship in service, but one of the most beautiful sights to captains on a long campaign. The ship itself is extremely sparse in design: a rectangular box, with a tapering forward section for crew and weapons and an engine assembly in the rear. As a military-grade transport, the design of the Jafnhár-class is different from that of civilian transports, which operate under safer conditions and whose profitability is of greater concern. While most civilian transports carry their cargo externally, attached to modular space-frame trusses to save deadweight tonnage, the Jafnhár-class uses a more protective full-enclosure system, keeping the payload bay within the ship. It is also equipped with its own loading and unloading systems, allowing it to distribute or load its own cargo in the event of poor infrastructure or damage to the receiving ships. The class is also armed and armored, another rare feature in standard civilian cargo liners plying the relatively safe spacelanes. The original payload bay measured 1,100 by 360 by 360 meters, enough to carry 9,600,000 tonnes of liquid hydrogen fuel when first introduced. A crew and equipment passageway punctuated the center of the bay, allowing access to the engines. The bay itself was kept in a vacuum state, and any tasks requiring pressurization required self-pressurized modules to be mounted in the bay. The advancement of miniaturization allowed the bay to be expanded to its current 2,000 by 420 by 450 meters, and the central passageway moved to the ship's port and starboard sides. The upper and lower faces are equipped with large clamshell doors to allow rapid access to the cargo, while the port and starboard sides are equipped with loading equipment for ship-to-ship transfer. Hangar bays at the rear also accommodate the ship's complement of cargo tugs and shuttles. In its current configuration, the cargo bay can easily carry any standard line warship currently in service, and has been occasionally used to remove damaged warships when mobile shipyards are not available. Category:New Free Planets Alliance Category:Starships Category:Free Planets Star Fleet Category:Military Equipment Category:Military